


Party Crasher

by alesia



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Merlin (TV)
Genre: Demon Summoning, Gen, Modern Era, Post-Canon (Merlin), Pre-Canon (BtVS), University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-22 02:11:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16588784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alesia/pseuds/alesia
Summary: "Does your house normally smell like rotten eggs?"





	Party Crasher

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my writing group's weekly challenge and unbetaed.
> 
> Prompt: “Do you guys hear the demonic frat-chanting outside too?”
> 
> This is an AU of an AU, but essentially: Merlin canon ended with the battle of Camlann in ~512 AD, Morgana was reborn in ~560 AD, and then lots of stuff happened. Morgana lives in Faerie most of the time so is essentially immortal. Merlin is Merlin (truly immortal, even when he doesn't want to be) and has a loooong wait ahead, even in 1975. Whew. On with the show.

**New Headington, Oxford, 1975**

"Knock knock," Morgan sang out as she pushed the door open. The usual sounds of a Friday night in student shared housing followed her in: laughter, shouting, and loud music.

"You do realize that was supposed to be locked." Emrys sat back in his chair with a sigh, massaging his aching wrists.

"How did your exams go?" Morgan perched on the edge of his bed, leaving the door cracked open behind her.

"Dunno. I've still got a practical in A&P next Thursday."

"You'll ace it, I'm sure." She wrinkled her nose. "Does your house normally smell like rotten eggs?"

Emrys shook his head.

"Do you think?..."

Emrys stood abruptly. "Let's go see, shall we?"

* * *

The ground floor was a wreck. A dozen or so people were getting sloshed on pints of Carling in the sitting room, leaving black cans littered over every surface. The stench of sulfur grew stronger near the stairs down to the cellar. Morgan and Emrys traded a speaking look.

"Down we go," Morgan muttered.

"Let me grab a torch first."

* * *

"I never thought of you as the partying type, you know?" Morgan's nose wrinkled as she kicked a can down the stairs.

"I'm not." Emrys shrugged. "But, the rent is cheap."

As they stepped off the stairs, the sounds of the party upstairs were replaced by an eerie quiet. Emrys shouldered the door open, Morgan following with the torch in one hand and a long knife held reversed in the other.

Chad, an American exchange student who lived on the top floor, lay hogtied in the center of a circle drawn with blood, gagged with his own shirt. Someone had cut an inverted pentagram into his chest; it still bled sluggishly. The stench of sulfur was just beginning to dissipate out the tiny ventilation window. Morgan quickly cut the ropes binding him as Emrys pulled the shirt out of his mouth.

"Boy, am I glad to see you." Chad looked at Morgan and then back at Emrys. "Wait, since when do you have a girlfriend?"

Emrys gave a deep sigh. "Focus, will you?"

Chad sat up, wincing. "I didn't see who hit me, but Ripper and Deidre were there."

"Well, then." Emrys helped the young man stand while Morgan carefully broke the circle in several places. "Let's go see what's going on, shall we?"

Chad balked at that. “Do you guys hear the demonic frat-chanting outside too?"

Emrys and Morgan exchanged a speaking look. "No, but if you're hearing chanting, that's not a good sign," Morgan said.

* * *

They let Chad lead, up the stairs, out the door and through the yard to the road up the hill and on into the dark. Half a kilometer on, he left the road and cut off into the woods. The evening breeze carried a faint hint of sulfur.

"I don't like this," Morgan whispered.

Emrys took in a deep breath, tasting the air. "There's magic afoot."

"Obviously." Morgan cast a protection charm, her eyes flashing gold. "Not our kind, either."

"There they are," Chad called back, waving the torch in unsteady circles. "Can you hear them now?" And there _was_ chanting, deep and rhythmic, syllables falling in a familiar cadence.

"Why is it always Latin," Emrys muttered.

"Lack of imagination," Morgan said with a sympathetic pat to the shoulder. "Besides, English is such a _boring_ language to cast spells in."

"You think everything is boring."

Morgan shrugged, unrepentant, and drew her knife again as they stepped through the trees after Chad. There were six people in the clearing: Ripper and Ethan who shared a room on the third floor, Phil from the second and his girlfriend Deidre from Cowley, and Tom and Randall who were always visiting the house but supposedly shared a tiny bedsit in North Oxford. All six were wearing shapeless robes of cheap black sackcloth; Randall stood in the center of a circle drawn in the dirt, head thrown back, the other five spaced evenly around him, all with their arms raised and chanting.

"Very nice," Emrys said in a loud voice as Chad shrank back and Morgan began to circle the clearing. "What's it for?"

Ripper turned around and scowled. "Piss off."

"Who's the pillock?" Deidre asked, tugging at Phil's sleeve.

Phil squinted at the newcomers. "Oh, that's the Welsh med student from the first floor."

"That's right," Emrys said pleasantly. "Who's your friend?"

"I thought you already knew Deidre, she lives over on – "

"I meant the demon possessing Randall," Emrys added. Morgan rolled her eyes at him from the other side of the circle, knife held loose at her side and ready for mayhem.

" ** _I AM EYGHON, FOOLISH MORTAL,_** " Randall growled, lowering his head. The skin on the face was stretched in a grotesque mask, and his ears were pointed. He stared at Emrys, who waggled his eyebrows and waited. " ** _NO. YOU ARE NO MORTAL. YOU ARE … MYRDDIN EMRYS._** "

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Ethan said. "That skinny beanpole? Quit takin' the mickey."

Emrys shrugged. "Sure. Why not. It's all a lark at your expense, just like your demon there. Whatever you need to tell yourself to get through the day." He raised a hand, palm out, fingers spread wide, and his eyes began to glow with golden power. "Your kind is not welcome in Albion, Eyghon. Begone, or be destroyed." His smile was sudden, cold and sharp. "I know which I'd prefer."

With a preternatural scream Randall collapsed into a dead faint, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Which, in a way, he was.

Morgan snorted. "Coward."

"Sensible," Emrys corrected absently as he lowered his hand and the light behind his eyes faded. "Are the rest of you all right?" The five conscious conspirators exchanged furtive glances. Emrys shrugged again. "I'll take that as a yes."

"I must be tripping balls," Chad said behind them. "I thought I heard Randall call you Merlin."

Emrys and Morgan exchanged a look. "Demons lie," Morgan said.

"What a ridiculous notion," Emrys added after a long pause.

Morgan rolled her eyes. _For someone with so much practice, you're_ still _a terrible liar,_ she sent with mind-speech.

 _I have_ no _idea what you're talking about,_ Emrys sent back, and ignored the smirking.

"We'll just, uh. Be going," Deidre said slowly.

"Right," Ripper said. The other would-be magicians added various sounds of confused agreement. Emrys and Morgan watched them leave the clearing toting Randall's unconscious body, metaphorical tails tucked between their legs.

"What idiots," Morgan said when they'd gone.

"Yes, well, we can't all be perfect prattish Pendragons, can we." Emrys scrubbed at the line drawn in the dirt with his shoe, then muttered a spell and waved his hand. The soil spread itself out evenly, erasing all trace of the ritual.

"Um," Chad said. Morgan and Emrys looked at him. He gulped. "I think I'll head home too."

"Good idea," Morgan said. "We'll join you."

* * *

The walk back to the boarding house was uneventful. No one felt like talking. Chad was unwillingly sobering up, Morgan was bored, and Emrys was preoccupied with his upcoming exam. They parted ways at the first floor landing.

Emrys clapped Chad on the shoulder. "Have a good evening, drink plenty of water… and be more careful who you get pissed with in future."

"You're my age," Chad groaned, "so why do you sound like you're forty?"

Morgan burst into giggles. Emrys glared at her out of the corner of his eye. "Oh, go and sleep it off," he grumbled. "And _you_ , quit laughing."

"Forty," Morgan said after they'd left Chad at the stairs and returned to Emrys' room. She was attempting to keep a straight face and failing miserably. "More like fourteen hundred."

Emrys rolled his eyes to the ceiling and flopped backwards onto his bed. "Are you quite finished?"

"No." Morgan stifled the first few giggles, but soon was cackling away. "Forty!"

Emrys gave a long-suffering sigh and threw an arm over his eyes. "I never had these sorts of problems at Swansea."


End file.
